France Says Ready To Help Eurostar Alongside Britain

Paris, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Jan, 2021 ) :France on Thursday vowed to provide support for Eurostar in tandem with Britain as the Channel Tunnel passenger train operator's revenues collapse due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.

"The state will be at Eurostar's side in order to maintain this strategic link between our two countries," Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari told a parliament committee for sustainable development.

"We are working with the English on mechanisms for proportional aide based on our involvement in Eurostar, so that we can financially sustain its business model," he said.

Talks have been underway for several weeks with his British counterpart Grant Shapps, he added.

Eurostar officials began warning last week that cash will run out within months without a bailout.

Passenger numbers plunged 85 percent last year as coronavirus travel restrictions were imposed, and the group is now running just one service a day between Paris and London -- before Covid it would operate up to two trains an hour during peak times.

"A catastrophe is possible," Eurostar's chief executive Jacques Damas told AFP on Monday, saying the situation has worsened this year after revenue fell 82 percent last year.

He said Eurostar had already cut costs to the bone and borrowed 450 million Euros ($547 million), while its shareholders had injected 200 million euros.

But unlike airlines, Eurostar has not benefited from emergency aid or state-backed loans as the health crisis rages.

It is owned 55 percent by France's state-owned rail operator SNCF, 30 percent by Canadian institutional fund manager Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec (CDPQ), 10 percent by Britain-based fund Hermes Infrastructure, and five percent by the Belgian railway SNCB.

Many in France consider London-based Eurostar to be a British institution, while in Britain it is seen as a French operation, which has complicated its attempts to secure government help on either side of the Channel.

Last Friday, the London First lobby group sent a letter signed by 25 British business leaders and academics to Britain's Treasury, warning that Eurostar's collapse would harm the country's economic and climate change targets.